Meander-Type Lines: An Innovative Design for On-Wafer TRL Calibration for mmW and sub-mmW Frequencies Measurements

In this article, we introduce novel transmission line standards for on-wafer thru-reflect-line (TRL) calibration employing a meandering architecture, which aims to keep the interprobe distance constant and avoid any probe separation during the measurement process, yet establishing the required signal path length between the ports. Measurements will be performed up to 500 GHz on passive de-embedding structures and on a silicon-germanium heterojunction bipolar transistor (SiGe HBT); they will be calibrated with both a classic approach and this novel “meander-type” technique. Furthermore, measurements will be evaluated by means of electromagnetic (EM) simulation: For this purpose, we will make use of Ansys High-Frequency Structure Simulator (HFSS) on passive test structures. Finally, a novel joint EM-SPICE cosimulation analysis will allow us to provide simulated data for a transistor, thus extending our study to active devices; this will allow a complete characterization of the measurements and an insight on the physical limits of our calibration technique.